I am "Rejecting 300" because 300 lbs is where I will be if I don't make some drastic changes in my life. This is a catalog of my journey.
"I will not try to satisfy haters. I am not a jackass whisperer."

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Affordable TREES

I made a $10 donation to the Arbor Day Foundation a few months ago and they sent me 12 baby trees! They'd promised to send 10 but for whatever reason I got 2 bonus trees so YAY! The trees arrived last week in a plastic bag full of hydrating gelatin and the planting instructions said we could leave them that way for up-to five days so we put them in the garage and waited for the weekend.

If you want/need to buy trees and you're in the Vegas area, I'm only keeping 3 of the 12 trees and my dad wants 1 of them so that leaves me with 8 more to give away ... just let me know you want some. If you're not in the Vegas area and need/want trees, I HIGHLY recommend the arbor day foundation - they sent me a catalog and after browsing through it I can promise you that they have the absolute best prices you'll find anywhere ... we're talking $6 for a peach tree vs. $250 at Star Nursery. Yes, they're younger trees but they are also guaranteed to grow. If they don't survive the foundation will replace them no charge, no questions asked.

Yesterday we picked up some cheap planter pots and potting soil from the local nursery (8 cents a pot, $20 for the soil). With Snackers being one-handed I loaded everything into the car and he hated it. He's such an old-fashioned guy and I think it's cute and all but seriously, even if he weren't injured I would have wanted to load everything just like I always want to carry the dog food for the extra exercise ... hey, every little bit helps. Well the doc has him on Keflex (antibiotic) to prevent infection and it makes him tired (the one time I had to take it I zonked out too) so when we got home he laid down to take a nap. I got the baby trees soaking in water as directed and then tried to lay down to nap with him but I'd fall asleep for about 5 minutes and then wake up for no reason. My body was saying "get up lazy ass and do something productive!". I was exhausted from the stress of the previous day and with his owy Snackers didn't sleep well Saturday night so I was up with him helping him take the lid off his pain killers so he could take one and then waiting for it to kick in so we could go back to bed etc.

Well I got up anyway, took the trash out to the street, emptied all of the trash cans in the house re-organized the garage a little bit and then got to work planting the trees. I'm so proud of me!!! I'll be even more proud of me if I can keep them alive since I tend to kill everything that I try to grow but, for the time being, they look really good and I think that I did a great job all by myself! It took me almost 2 hours to plant them all in the buckets, move the buckets to the front porch, and clean up the mess but by the time I was done Snackers was awake and had to go back to work to fill out some paperwork on his accident so it worked out perfectly.

I have the following trees (Google pics of them, they're all beautiful!):
3 White Flowering Dogwood trees (I'm keeping one of these for my front yard)
3 Eastern Redbud trees (I'm either keeping 2 of these, or the Crapemyrtles)
4 Golden Raintrees (These are beautiful but I'm not keeping any of them)
2 Crapemyrtles (might be keeping these, not sure).

4 comments:

Awwwww man! Your supposed to take pictures of them in the bag and after you soaked them and after you planted them. How am I supposed to live vicariously through you if you don't show me pics? LOL I am afraid of the commitment trees are. But then again if I had planted some fruit trees when we bought the house we would have fruit now (9 yrs later- gosh time flies)

lol Swan you're so cute. I'm sorry I didn't take pics of the trees but I can post pictures of Snackers' bloody hand before and after stitches if you want. :) I can still take pics of them in their buckets, they look so cute and tiny. I'd love to plant fruit trees and I think we're still planning on a lime tree and then some kind of nectarine or something down the road.

When it comes to trees, you *ALWAYS* pay for maturity... and the price goes up significantly with only a little more growth. The reason being is that trees tend to grow pretty slow and most people are buying trees to shade specific problem spots... most people don't want to wait several years just to START seeing some benefit. For example, I spent like $80 for 2 trees 3 summers ago in hopes of getting more shade for my west-side where the sun beats our home to death in the summer... the trees provide *SOME* benefit to our downstairs in the later hours of the afternoon, but *NO* benefit yet to our upstairs, where the problem is worse; I just couldn't justify spending $250/tree (plus hauling and labor to install such a large tree!)... which means, I'm still several years away from getting relief for our upstairs. OTOH, had I gone with cheaper trees, I *STILL* wouldn't be getting shade for the downstairs.

I'm sure you got a great deal, not saying that you didn't. But it pays to consider one's current needs before opting for a small tree... trees grow slow. These 2, for example, have grown maybe a foot or two maximum in 3 years.

I wasn't loving the $250 price tags either but I'm lucky in that I didn't necessarily have any "immediate" needs for a tree when I made the donation and got these baby ones. We have a tiny (like, only a foot tall) palm in the front yard that looks like it's sick and isn't very attractive so I wanted to rip that out and replace it with a solar powered lamp post but the HOA requires a certain number of trees and shrubs in each yard so I can still rip the palm out and put in one of my baby trees next year. So I guess one need I had was to meet the HOA's "tree quota" which this will do despite it's size.

The other reason we wanted some trees was because we had said when we first bought the house that we wanted to plan a tree together as kind of a tribute to the beginning of our life here. Again, the size doesn't really matter as long as I can keep Vladdy from eating them when I finally plant the two that we're keeping for the back yard. They'll only be about 20-25 ft at full maturity so they're not very big trees to begin with but it will be fun for us to have something that we can nurture and watch grow together.

Now in the situation of someone that needs immediate shade - yes I see your point for sure. Then again I think about that living Christmas tree that dad planted in the front yard of the B&B that is now a towering mammoth in the front yard 10 years later and it makes me glad that I have little trees. :)